Chapeau Pinot

Frenchman Thibaut Pinot of Groupama – FDJ won the race of his dreams as he rode away from his last opponent, Bahrain – Merida’s Vincenzo Nibali, the defending champion, for a brilliant solo victory on the shores of Lake Como. Belgium’s Dylan Teuns of BCM Racing Team rounded out the podium of the 112th Il Lombardia NamedSport.

Thibaut Pinot delivered the 12th win for France at Il Lombardia, equalling Belgium’s tally. Italy is clear ahead with 69 victories. It’s the first French win since 1997 (Laurent Jalabert).

Thibaut Pinot is the first rider to double up Milano-Torino and Il Lombardia the same week since Michele Bartoli in 2002.

The average speed exceeds 40km/h (40.921km/h) for the first time since Philippe Gilbert’s victory in 2009 (41.541km/h). Dylan Teuns is the first Belgian to make the podium since then.

32 seconds is the biggest gap between the winner of Il Lombardia and the runner up since Andrea Tafi won by 2’19’’ over Fabian Jeker in 1996. Last year, Vincenzo Nibali won with a margin of 28 seconds over Julian Alaphilippe.

Thibaut Pinot scored the 33rd win of the season for the Groupama-FDJ team, equalling the record of the French squad in 2013.

The winner, Thibaut Pinot said in the post-race press conference: “I don’t know if it was an attack from far out but I wanted it badly, so when I saw Nibali attacking, I thought it was the perfect move. In addition, with Primoz Roglic and Egan Bernal who are two strong riders, when we got a gap of 40 to 50 seconds, I understood it would be complicated for the others to come across. Clearly, this is the most beautiful win of my career. Had I been able to choose one race to win, it would have been this one. This is a true achievement. My goal was to be alone at the top of Civiglio. I didn’t want to face another duel against Nibali in that downhill.”

Vincenzo Nibali, second, said: “I wasn’t hungerflat. I’ve tried to deal with myself, my legs after a breakaway from far out and it was Il Lombardia, not just another race, and the condition is what is it is. But I improved my cycling a bit especially for this race that counts a lot in my mind. I couldn’t do any more. Thibaut Pinot came out well from Milano-Torino. He’s having a good period of his season. He’s really at the top of his game and he had to in order to do something similar to what I did last year. As soon as I was about to be caught by my chasers, I sped up again because there was the will to show off and some strength left. Thus I managed to obtain this second place because of my fighting spirit.”

Dylan Teuns, third, said: “It’s a really nice result. I’m again on the podium of a big classic after the Flèche Wallonne. I can be happy today because we had two strong guys who were second and first. I had really good legs, except that I couldn’t gamble for the win because on the Sormano, the guys were too strong for me. It was a fast race because Movistar and Groupama-FDJ took the control from the beginning. They paced really hard all day. It also took quite long at the beginning for the breakaway to be formed.”